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Latest Updates: aerial bombardment RSS

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  thabet 6:52 am on September 18, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, collateral damage (76), conflict (10), geopolitics (118), international relations (188), refugees (17), war (36), yemen (45)

  Aerial bombardment is an indiscriminate form of violence:

  At least 87 refugees have been killed in an army air raid on a makeshift camp in north Yemen.

  The camp at Adi in Harf Sufyan has been at the centre of fighting between government forces and Zaidi Shia fighters, which erupted in early August.

  News Yemen, an independent website, aid on Thursday the raid hit the refugees while “they were sleeping under trees and plastic awnings.”

  There’s talk of a proxy war between Iran and Saudi Arabia, although one informed commentator says viewing this conflict in this way “does not help”.

  (Side note: I was interested to discover Saudi had been at loggerheads with Oman and pre-UAE Abu Dhabi in the 1950s. Over oil, of course.)

   

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  thabet 3:49 am on September 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, afghanistan (396), collateral damage (76), military (58), NATO (40), taliban (260), united states (576)

  Reports say up to 150 villagers, including insurgents, may have been killed in Friday’s NATO-led airstrike.

   
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  thabet 7:03 am on September 5, 2009 | 12 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, collateral damage (76), fallujah, international law (143), Iraq (195), military (58), united states (576), weapons

  Sky News has a very distressing report (and distressing images) on babies being born in Fallujah with defects that are linked to the use of white phosphorus and/or depleted uranium in the city by US and Iraqi forces in 2004.

  I wonder which ‘international courts’ and ‘world forums’ these people can turn to?

   
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  thabet 3:48 am on August 19, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, blackwater (24), collateral damage (76), foreign policy (237), human rights (381), liberal interventionism (49), NATO (40), united states (576)

  More killings of civilians in Afghanistan by Western airstrikes, and ’security contractors’ (mercenaries).

   
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  thabet 8:26 am on August 13, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, collateral damage (76), drone attacks (13), ethics (15), international law (143), just war (4), Pakistan (568)

  The legal questions over drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal regions.

   
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  thabet 1:30 am on August 13, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, afghanistan (396), collateral damage (76), foreign policy (237), international relations (188), NATO (40), united states (576)

  Richard Holbrooke spoke to a conference on Afghanistan yesterday.

  It appears Holbrooke too has joined the growing list of people who are no different to Rush Limbaugh:

  “The best counter-propaganda is to reduce civilian casualties,” [Richard Holbrooke] said. “The rules of engagement have changed in a way which has produced a result on the ground.”

  The pearls of wisdom from the resident Obama cultist might be good for a laugh every morning, but for informed insights I’d recommend following Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel on Twitter and PJ Tobia’s Afghan Desk.

   
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  thabet 2:46 am on August 9, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, counterterrorism (35), drones (16), foreign policy (237), Pakistan (568), Terrorism (399), united states (576)

  The pros and cons of using drones to kill terrorists in Pakistan.

   
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  thabet 1:16 am on August 6, 2009 | 14 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, couterterrorism, drones (16), foreign policy (237), Pakistan (568), Terrorism (399), the terror threat (68), united states (576)

  In the interests of fairness and to prompt a better debate, here is an article at Foreign Policy which offers a defence of the US policy of using drones in Pakistan’s tribal/border areas and weighs the dangers with the benefits.

   
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  thabet 4:57 am on August 5, 2009 | 8 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, Baitullah Mehsud (11), foreign policy (237), Pakistan (568), Pakistan Taliban (124), united states (576)

  A US drone has reportedly killed one of Beitullah Mehsud’s wives:

  Two missiles, suspected to have been fired by a US drone, have killed one of the wives of a leading Pakistani militant, relatives have told the BBC.

  The missiles struck the house of top Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud’s father-in-law, locals told the BBC.

  They say that several other relatives of Mr Mehsud were injured in the attack in the South Waziristan tribal area.

  Meedan twittered the following:

  What was the strategic thinking behind killing Beitullah Mehsud’s wife? Is the US trying to drive Taliban recruitment through the roof?

   
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  thabet 4:20 am on August 2, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, afghanistan (396), collateral damage (76), empire (37), history (133), human rights (381), liberal interventionism (49), liberalism (43), united kingdom (732), united states (576)

  American Empire:

  In 1932, in a series of Guernica-like atrocities, the British used poison gas in Waziristan. The disarmament convention of the same year sought a ban against the aerial bombardment of civilians, but [David] Lloyd George, who had been British prime minister during World War I, gloated: “We insisted on reserving the right to bomb niggers” [...] His view prevailed.

  The U.S. continues to act similarly, but with the new excuse that our killing of noncombatants is a result of “collateral damage,” or human error. Using pilotless drones guided with only minimal accuracy from computers at military bases in the Arizona and Nevada deserts among other places, we have killed hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unarmed bystanders in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Pakistani and Afghan governments have repeatedly warned that we are alienating precisely the people we claim to be saving for democracy.

   
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  thabet 4:34 am on July 22, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, afghanistan (396), civilians (28), collateral damage (76), foreign policy (237), liberal interventionism (49), taliban (260), Terrorism (399), united states (576)

  More civilians killed by all sides in Afghanistan.

   
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  thabet 7:25 am on July 12, 2009 | 2 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, afghanistan (396), civilians (28), collateral damage (76), foreign policy (237), geopolitics (118), language (95), united kingdom (732)

  The truth of the matter:

  That’s to say that [British military deaths] have been low in any case, but shockingly small compared with Afghan or Iraqi deaths. No one really has any idea how many civilians have been killed in either country, and we have grown inured to one story after another about dozens of mountain villagers killed by an American air strike. What that means is that these disastrous campaigns have seen the culmination of a trend visible for much of the preceding century: we now live in the age of wars in which only civilians are killed.

   
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  thabet 10:50 pm on June 20, 2009 | 6 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, afghanistan (396), collateral damage (76), geopolitics (118), human rights (381), united states (576)

  Innocent lives Barack Obama forgot to mourn:

  At least 26 innocent Afghans were killed in three separate airstrikes by B-1 bombers assisting ground forces during a fierce fight with the Taliban, the US military’s investigation into the May 4 incident in Farah Province in Afghanistan concluded.

  And it seems that killing Afghan civilians gets you free flying classes. So much for accountability and human rights.

  What is also interesting is how Iranians killed by their state are ‘humanised’ (they’re real people suffering real pain), but Afghans blown up by American bombs are reduced to the jargon of a bureaucrat.

   
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  thabet 7:25 am on May 15, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, afghanistan (396), collateral damage (76), NATO (40), united states (576)

  Malalai Joya writes about the latest NATO bombing of an Afghan village:

  As an elected representative for Farah, Afghanistan, I add my voice to those condemning the NATO bombing that claimed over 150 civilian lives in my province earlier this month. This latest massacre offers the world a glimpse of the horrors faced by our people.

  However, as I explained at a May 11 press conference in Kabul, the U.S. military authorities do not want you to see this reality. As usual, they have tried to downplay the number of civilian casualties, but I have information that as many as 164 civilians were killed in the bombings. One grief stricken man from the village of Geranai explained at the press conference that he had lost 20 members of his family in the massacre.

   
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  thabet 3:28 am on May 15, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, collateral damage (76), militancy (25), Pakistan (568), taliban (260), violence (161), warfare (22)

  
  Farhad Bibi survived a Pakistani jet attack on her home, but her one-year-old daughter, Hassina, was one of 11 people killed.

  Declan Walsh visits a family who has had to flee the fighting in the northwest of Pakistan. The family has seen their members killed by Taliban militants, and bombed by Pakistani military attacks.

   
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  thabet 12:08 am on May 10, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, afghanistan (396), military (58), united states (576)

  A record number of bombs were dropped on Afghanistan during April, according to the Navy Times.

  (Via Lenin’s Tomb.)

   
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  thabet 11:37 pm on May 7, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, foreign policy (237), military (58), propaganda (47), united states (576)

  
  (Peter Brooks in The Times.)

   
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  thabet 1:43 am on May 7, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, afghanistan (396), civilians (28), collateral damage (76), united states (576)

  Human rights update from Afghanistan: The Red Cross has confirmed that ‘dozens’ of civilians were killed by a US raid.

  Hillary Clinton said the US ‘regretted’ the loss of life, which we know is a barefaced lie.

   
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  thabet 7:45 am on April 20, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, collateral damage (76), Pakistan (568), predator drones (11), war on terror (45)

  Predator drones, the new technology behind the same old violence:
  

  Figures compiled by the Pakistani authorities show that a total of 701 people, including 14 al-Qaeda leaders, have been killed since January 2006 in 60 American predator attacks targeting the tribal areas of Pakistan. Two strikes carried out in 2006 had killed 98 civilians while three attacks conducted in 2007 had slain 66 Pakistanis, yet none of the wanted al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders could be hit by the Americans right on target. However, of the 50 drone attacks carried out between January 29, 2008 and April 8, 2009, 10 hit their targets and killed 14 wanted al-Qaeda operatives. Most of these attacks were carried out on the basis of intelligence believed to have been provided by the Pakistani and Afghan tribesmen who had been spying for the US-led allied forces stationed in Afghanistan.

  The remaining 50 drone attacks went wrong due to faulty intelligence information, killing hundreds of innocent civilians, including women and children. The number of the Pakistani civilians killed in those 50 attacks stood at 537, in which 385 people lost their lives in 2008 and 152 people were slain in the first 99 days of 2009 (between January 1 and April 8).

  Of the 50 drone attacks, targeting the Pakistani tribal areas since January 2008, 36 were carried out in 2008 and 14 were conducted in the first 99 days of 2009. Of the 14 attacks targeting Pakistan in 2009, three were carried out in January, killing 30 people, two in February killing 55 people, five in March killing 36 people and four were conducted in the first nine days of April, killing 31 people.

  Of the 14 strikes carried out in the first 99 days of April 2009, only one proved successful, killing two most wanted senior al-Qaeda leaders – Osama al Kini and Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan. Both had lost their lives in a New Year’s Day drone strike carried out in the South Waziristan region on January 1, 2009.

  (Via Chris Floyd.)

   
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  thabet 11:33 am on April 18, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: aerial bombardment, bombing, collateral damage (76), empire (37), warfare (22)

  Marylin Young and Yuri Tanaka have put together a new book on the bombing of civilians:

  Airpower embodies American technology at its most dashing. At regular intervals, the air force and allied technocrats claim that innovations in air technology herald an entirely new age of warfare. Korea and Vietnam were, so to speak, living laboratories for the development of new weapons: the 1,200-pound radio-guided Tarzon bomb (featured in Korean-era Movietone newsreels); white-phosphorous-enhanced napalm; cluster bombs (CBUs) carrying up to 700 bomblets, each bomblet containing 200 to 300 tiny steel balls or fiberglass fléchettes; delayed-fuse cluster bombs; airburst cluster bombs; toxic defoliants; varieties of nerve gas; sets of six B 52s, operating at altitudes too high to be heard on the ground, capable of delivering up to thirty tons of explosives each [...] To the policy makers, air war is abstract [...] A “hill position,” a “building” (in Vietnam, “hooches,” sometimes “structures”)—not people.

  John Keegan identified the emergence of ‘thing-killing’, which is aimed at maximising human pain, during the 19th-century; the barbaric bombing of civilians is simply a continuation of this imperial tradition.